Barbra Streisand Says She “Never” Idly Sings Around the House

“She’s funny, klutzy, always questioning herself, and such a talent,” Michael Douglas said of Barbra Streisand, at Lincoln Center on Monday, where she received the Film Society’s Chaplin Award. “She’s a good friend of ours, and I just love her as a character,” Douglas added. “So involved in world events, and in between that, she happens to sing a little bit and do a few movies. But to watch her go through her deliberation process is something I don’t wish upon anyone,” Douglas said, laughing. “It’s painful.”

But Streisand’s husband, James Brolin, loves her perfectionist streak. “She’s very deliberate, opinionated. Loves to bounce all of her ideas off the wall,” Brolin said during pre-ceremony cocktails. “She says, ‘What do you think?’ I tell her, ‘Here’s what I think.’ [She says,] ‘That’s no good, but now I know what’s good.’ So I appreciate that kind of thing she does,” Brolin said. “It’s like playing tennis against a wall, you know what I mean? I don’t talk back to her, and that’s been one of the great things about our relationship. I love what she does—I love the hardballs that she hits me.”

One thing that Brolin doesn’t get to do is hear her sing around the house. “Never,” Streisand told us, when we asked if she warbles on an impromptu basis. But anyway, the Chaplin award is about film, and so Streisand’s film work was the center of attention for the evening.

Bill Clinton presented Streisand with the award, and highlights of the program (which raised more than $2 million, double the haul of previous years) included performances from Liza Minnelli, Wynton Marsalis, and Tony Bennett. Ben Stiller, Kris Kristofferson, George Segal, Amy Irving, Catherine Deneuve, and Pierce Brosnan spoke. Songwriter and longtime Streisand intimate Alan Bergman sang a customized version of “The Way We Were,” which he co-wrote with Marvin Hamlisch.

The film clips shown throughout the evening, from Funny Girl to The Way We Were to Yentlto Meet the Fockers, had everyone in the audience ready to watch them all again.

Streisand told VF Daily that she loves many of her movies, but Funny Girl has a special place in her heart. “That was the first. And it was a great experience working with William Wyler,” she said. “And, um, it was just fun to have my opinions be taken seriously by a great filmmaker, too, you know? Because I did play the part a thousand times, literally, so every morning I used to bring in folders from out-of-town tryouts and all the different ideas, and he would pick and choose which ones he liked,” she said. “And which ones he didn’t,” she added, demonstrating that perfect sense of comic timing. “But it was a great experience.”

After the honors at Avery Fisher Hall, the crowd migrated across the Lincoln Center plaza to the David H. Koch Theater for a celebratory dinner hosted by Grey Goose. To kick off the dinner, Ann Hampton Callaway,who wrote the song Streisand sang to Brolin at their 1998 wedding, sang a song she made up right there on the spot, using words suggested by guests to describe Streisand or her career.

A sampling:

Katie Couric: “Ballsy.”

Douglas: “Oy vey.”

Brolin’s favorite of his wife’s movies: Nuts.

Streisand’s word to describe the evening in her honor: “Glorious.”

Meanwhile, a few attendees told VF Daily about when they first met Streisand. “I was working at a little club called the Troubadour, out in Los Angeles, where all the singer-songwriters went,” Kristofferson said. “And she was up in the audience, and I was a little stunned, you know, because, uh, I’m not ashamed of my songwriting, but my singing leaves somethin’ to be desired,” he told us, laughing. “We were nowhere in the same league. But for some reason, I think, she saw enough mutual stuff going on to make sure I got in that film, A Star Is Born.”Kristofferson is grateful. “It was a wonderful experience, and I feel indebted to her for it,” he said.

Donna Karan, Streisand’s go-to designer and friend, was still working at Anne Klein when they met. “They came and said to me, ‘Barbra needs some clothes,’ and they knew they were mine,” Karan said. “She had bought a fur coat of mine in Bergdorf’s; she came to the office when I was at Anne Klein.” And what was that like, to have Barbra Streisand request your designs? “I died,” Karan said. “Yes, I died. She was my idol.”

Liza Minnelli couldn’t recall their first meeting but happily remembered the first time she got to hang out with Streisand. “She was in England singing at Talk of the Town,” Minnelli told VF Daily. “And I was over there doing something, and we got together after the show, and we went around and we ended up at this very elegant gambling club. And both of us looked a little stunned that they had brought us there,” she said, laughing. “So we sat down, and I remember, she won first,” Minnelli said. “And then I won.”